“A lot of Alaska fishermen are sitting here saying this program, which is scheduled to start in a month, is extremely onerous for the small community-based boats and doesn’t contain the logistical detail that we need to know — and didn’t have input on — in order to minimize the impact on our businesses,” Falvey said.

The new program will include commercial boats under 60 feet. For 2013, vessels under 40 feet will remain exempt.

Vessels and processors will pay observer-coverage fees equal to 1.25 percent of the value of their groundfish and halibut.

Some vessels will be assigned to a “trip selection” pool and will be required to inform the agency at least 72 hours before departure of a fishing trip. NOAA Fisheries will randomly assign observer coverage to vessels for single fishing trips.

In a “vessel-selection” pool, boats randomly selected by NOAA Fisheries will be required to take observers for every trip occurring in a specified two-month period.

Fishing representatives said they would have preferred phased implementation of the expanded program. More than 50 percent of the observed trips will be on small boats that account for less than 12 percent of Alaska’s overall groundfish and halibut harvest, they said.

They also contend the new program should have included the option of electronic catch monitoring used in Canada, which is far more cost-effective than human observers, Falvey said.

“We found that the current technology is widely adaptable and reliable on Alaska’s small boats,” he said. “It’s accepted by the operators of the boats and doesn’t appear to be too intrusive.”

NOAA Fisheries’ Martin Loefflad said electronic monitoring may not be able to gather data that human observers can, such as weight and length of fish.

Deployment plans were purposely left flexible because regulations are hard to change, he said. The agency has committed to annual review of deployment plans by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

“So it will be on the radar every year, and the ability to adapt and grow is kind of built into it,” he said.